Investors hope Flowers (NYSE: FLO) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by 2 cents in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, August 17. Flowers is a producer and marketer of packaged bakery foods for retail and foodservice customers. It consists of two business segments: direct-store-delivery and warehouse delivery.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts think investors should stand pat on Flowers with six of 11 analysts rating it hold. Analysts don't like Flowers as much as competitor TreeHouse overall. Six out of 13 analysts rate TreeHouse a buy compared to four of 11 for Flowers. That rating hasn't budged in three months as analysts have remained steady in their opinion of the stock.
  • Revenue Forecasts: On average, analysts predict $637.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 4.9% from the year-ago quarter.
  • Wall Street Earnings Expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of 26 cents per share. Estimates range from 25 cents to 27 cents.

What our community says:
 CAPS All Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.6% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All Stars with 96.8% granting it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on Flowers and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 115 posts in the past 30 days. Flowers has a bullish CAPS rating of five out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
 Flowers' profit has risen year over year by an average of 3.2% over the past five quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Gross Margin

48.6%

48.1%

47.1%

47.6%

Operating Margin

7.7%

8%

7.8%

8.4%

Net Margin

5.1%

5.5%

5.2%

5.6%

For all our Flowers-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Flowers to My Watchlist.

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